charlie's Journal: British Plane Spotters arrested in Greece: the Truth?

You've probably seen the news about a group of twelve British and two Dutch plane spotters who were arrested while on a plane spotting trip to Greece, and charged with espionage (carrying a 20-year maximum sentence). They've now been released on bail and the main charges dropped, replaced with minor ones.

The following message was posted to the (public) scoopgen mailing list on Sunday by Chris Fudge, one of the released members of the plane spotting party, and I think it bears reproduction here because of what it suggests about the way the media has handled the whole affair, especially in the current climate of paranoia about terrorism.

Dear all

Just starting to plough through 5000+ Emails and realised the amount of attention that I have been attracting.

[ snip ]

Just a few points about our arrest (if you can keep a straight face !)

• I was arrested for taking pictures at an airshow. I don't have a camera!
• We had an invitation to the Greek airshows from a Brigadier-General in the Air Force
• The faxed invitation from the Air Force magically disappeared for four weeks.
• The eight original charges against us have all been dropped as they were based on lies.
• The court charged us 300 pounds each for every visit we made. The EEC (e.g. the British tax payer) paid $40 each per day for our accommodation ($40 x 14 people x 36 nights). It's a money making scam especially as we were sleeping on the floor.
• A retired Greek Air Force General, a senior Greek Intelligence Officer, plus others have offered to appear in court in our defence.
• The Greek Government is still saying that we took photos four weeks after the charges were dropped!

You will pleased to know that there is no evidence against me but It is claimed that I offered 'psyological support' to the group! They are unlikely to drop the charges as we will then be able to prosecute them for wrongful arrest etc. The British MEP's are also looking at the legal aspect with a view of a prosecution through the European courts.

Back to Charlie:

What we have here is an innocent (feh!) money-making scam by some bureaucrats that backfired and has turned into a full-blown international incident between the UK and Greece -- one that promises to occupy most of the agenda of an EU Foreign Minister's summit later this month.

But just try to imagine for a moment what the news coverage would have been like if the plane spotters had included any arab or middle-eastern faces. Or if Greece was operating under the proposed legal regime US Attorney General Ashcroft wants to introduce, or with the detention provisions that UK Home Secretary Blunkett has just pushed through.

Here's a new acid-test for anti-terrorism laws: "imagine that a corrupt cop decides to turn you into their pet revenue-generating scheme. Under the new proposed law, are you (a) better off, (b) much the same, or (b) less able to defend yourself?"